For generations, soldiers documented their wartime experiences in personal diaries, photographs, and correspondence with loved ones.

Often veterans kept these treasured personal collections long after their service and handed them down to family members. Eventually, these personal military service records humanized the sacrifice of war through historians’ use as primary sources. For many, the only connection to veterans and their stories is exposure to archival and museum collections. It is vital, therefore, to preserve these records for the veterans, their families, and the general public.

With the digital revolution, the 21st-century soldier’s experience presents new challenges compared to their 20th-century counterparts. Contemporary veterans utilize a broader array of platforms to document their time in service by incorporating both analog and digital worlds. Analog records, such as physical letters, postcards, photographs, trinkets, and mementos are concrete and relatively easy to store and bring out to share with others. Digital materials, such as emails, text messages, videos, digital photos, and social media posts, are much more abstract and challenging.

In its entirety, the Virtual Footlocker Project aims to:

1. Identify the types of records 21st-century active duty military and veterans create to document their time in service;

2. Explore how veterans use their personal records;

3. Provide veterans with the tools and training to identify important records, organize, store and preserve their collections; and finally

4. Train archivists and other cultural heritage professionals on how to assist veterans.